Fears over Liberia port city

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The humanitarian situation in Liberia's second city - the port of Buchanan - is increasingly desperate, the Red Cross has said.

Fighting has been taking place between rebels of the Model movement, who hold Buchanan, and government forces.

More than 8,000 people have taken refuge in the Catholic Mission compound, which is said to have run out of food and water.

The Liberian President, Charles Taylor, has said goodbye to his supporters and said he was standing down in the interests of the Liberian people.

Meanwhile, West African peacekeepers and the American ambassador are due to meet another rebel group controlling the port area in the capital, Monrovia, to persuade them to open it and allow aid to be delivered.

'More bloodshed'

General Festus Okonkwo, the head of the Nigerian-led Ecomil west African peacekeeping force, told the AFP news agency he postponed plans to meet leaders of the main rebel group Lurd - Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy - on Saturday.

Mr Taylor has promised to resign from office on Monday and leave Liberia at an unspecified time as part of a peace deal.

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Mr Taylor said his impending resignation - forced on him by international opinion - amounted to what he described as a rape of democracy.

The president has been indicted for war crimes by a UN court, but his supporters say he is the victim of the American and British governments, who are demanding that he leave the country.

His spokesman has warned that Mr Taylor's departure could be followed by more bloodshed, involving his demoralised fighters.

"Once the president leaves, our boys might be stigmatised. If that is the case, you must expect chaos. Hell might just break loose," said Vaani Passawe.

Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea said if Mr Taylor's departure does result in collapse, then it means those who blamed him for the violence "are wrong".

Mr Taylor has said he will hand power to Vice-President Moses Blah - an ally from his days of guerrilla training in Libya.

Lurd rebels say they will not accept him as a successor and will keep on fighting.

Promises

But West African officials say that Mr Blah's stay would only be short, possibly just days, before a new interim president is chosen at peace talks in Ghana among government officials and rebels.

Rebels have pledged to turn over Monrovia's port to peacekeepers when they arrive in adequate numbers.

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"The port is not closed, we don't have keys for the doors. We will not close it to anybody including humanitarian workers," Lurd deputy secretary general Sekou Fofana told reporters.

"If they want to take their food, then we have no reason to object to that."

With aid ships heading for Monrovia, the port, and its warehouses, are crucial to feeding hundreds of thousands of famished civilians on the cut-off government side of Monrovia.

Ahead of any deal, the International Red Cross made a second trip across Monrovia's front lines on Saturday, ferrying medical kits and medicine to the rebel side.

Representatives said civilians there have food but cannot reach the main hospitals on the government side.

Doctors in rebel-held territory have been reduced to setting up a hospital at a recently abandoned beer factory, treating injured children alongside rebel fighters on a loading dock of the plant.